COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EVENTS
This spring, multiple community organizations are coming together to amplify the Comox Valley Art Gallery’s convergent program that turns our collective attention to the human experience of dying, death, and grief.
Adjacent to the art installations and performances at CVAG, the following free events invite the community into opportunities that open up consideration, conversation, and our consciousness to a part of our lives that is often avoided, denied, and given over to others to manage. These contributions offer pathways towards recovering our agency and a dismantling of prevailing stigma and taboos that shroud our inevitable encounter with dying, death, and grief.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS AT CVAG
Mini Grief 101 | Wednesday, April 15 | 2:00 – 3:30pm | Presented by Comox Valley Hospice Society
This information-based gathering offers an opportunity to learn more about the physical, psychological and emotional impacts of a common but life changing process. Knowing a little more about grief and loss can help us better support a friend, family member or coworker and have more empathy for ourselves and others.
Music Meditations | Friday, April 17 | 2:00 – 3:00pm | Led by Threshold Choir
Threshold Choir sings with and for all people. They know that music has the potential to be a healing power and can be an instrument for peace and justice. They are committed to creating a harmonious culture of inclusivity, respect, and love. The choir affirms the beauty, dignity, and wholeness of all people and believe that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness from their first to their last breath.
Community Grief Circle | Wednesday, April 29 | 2:00 – 4:00pm | Facilitated by Cadance Moffat McCann (Inner Cadence)
Grief takes many forms — personal and collective, recent and long held. This community grief circle offers a quiet, facilitated space to gather, reflect, and be witnessed. Through sharing and simple somatic practices, participants are invited to notice what is held in the body and allow emotion to move in its own time.
This is not a space of fixing or resolving, but of being with; of letting grief be seen, heard, and held. This event is open to anyone carrying grief of any kind.
Facilitator Cadence Moffat McCann is a somatic and nature-based healing practitioner supporting people through grief, loss, and life’s transitions. Her work invites a return to the body, to feeling, and to a deeper sense of belonging within the web of life.
Registration is required for this event as capacity is limited. To sign up to attend the Community Grief Circle, please email: register@comoxvalleyartgallery.com.
National Hospice and Palliative Care Week | May 3 – 9, 2026
National Hospice and Palliative Care Week is a time to celebrate and highlight the incredible work being done to provide quality palliative care across the country. It is also a time to call for better access to quality hospice palliative care, for every community, in every setting. Besides the activities at CVAG, there will be events throughout the community listed on the Comox Valley Hospice Society’s events calendar.
Mini Grief 101 | Wednesday, May 6 | 2:00 – 3:30pm | Presented by Comox Valley Hospice Society
This information-based gathering offers an opportunity to learn more about the physical, psychological and emotional impacts of a common but life changing process. Knowing a little more about grief and loss can help us better support a friend, family member or coworker and have more empathy for ourselves and others.
Death Cafe | Thursday, May 7 | 2:00 – 3:00pm | Facilitated by Comox Valley Hospice Society
This is a drop-in, cafe-style gathering with coffee/tea, nibbles, and purposeful conversation facilitated by Death Cafe volunteers.
Death Cafe events are held the world over in communities just like ours. People from all walks of life gather to have candid conversations about death and dying, in a casual cafe setting. These discussion groups (not support groups) are participant facilitator lead and have no hidden agenda or affiliation. The only objective is ‘to increase awareness of death and dying and to “make the most of our finite lives.”
Music Meditations | Saturday, May 9 | 2:00 – 3:00pm | Led by Threshold Choir
Threshold Choir sings with and for all people. They know that music has the potential to be a healing power and can be an instrument for peace and justice. They are committed to creating a harmonious culture of inclusivity, respect, and love. The choir affirms the beauty, dignity, and wholeness of all people and believe that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness from their first to their last breath.
Waves of Loss: An Interactive Journey through Environmental Grief | Saturday, May 16 | 2:00 – 3:30 pm | Facilitated by Tina Willard-Stepan (Connected by Water) | Limited to 25 Participants (All Ages)
This participatory workshop invites participants to engage with water as both teacher and mirror — revealing how cycles of flow, stillness, and renewal can guide our understanding of environmental change and care. Through gentle movement, reflection, and collaborative creative practices, we’ll explore the connections between personal grief and the shifting health of the Comox Lake Watershed and the ecosystems that support it.
Together, we’ll consider how water shapes our sense of place and responsibility, and how collective awareness can nurture resilience in the face of ecological loss. The session offers space for reflecting on what has changed while grounding in community-based actions that sustain renewal and hope.
Facilitator Tina Willard-Stepan is an environmental educator, artist, speaker and facilitator, Tina brings depth to important conversation about climate and the environment. She is an educator for the CVRD Connected by Water team, a graduate of Climate Leadership Training, and an active part of the Climate Reality Project.
Death Cafe | Thursday, May 28 | 2:00 – 3:00pm | Facilitated by Comox Valley Hospice Society
This is a drop-in, cafe-style gathering with coffee/tea, nibbles, and purposeful conversation facilitated by Death Cafe volunteers.
Death Cafe events are held the world over in communities just like ours. People from all walks of life gather to have candid conversations about death and dying, in a casual cafe setting. These discussion groups (not support groups) are participant facilitator lead and have no hidden agenda or affiliation. The only objective is ‘to increase awareness of death and dying and to “make the most of our finite lives.”
OFFSITE EVENTS + SELF-DIRECTED ACTIVITIES
Placekeeping Grief: Exploring Altered Landscapes | Date TBA | Facilitated by Meaghan Cursons (Connected by Water) | Registration Required
Join storyteller, community historian and public educator Meaghan Cursons for a site-based exploration of an altered landscape of Perseverance Creek Corridor.
Unearth stories of displacement, coal and timber extraction, floods, fires, and loss as we witness nature in this liminal space between harm and healing, ruin and recovery.
Registration is required for this event, so additional information can be sent to participants. An online registration form will be available soon!
Curated Grief Resources | April 4 – May 30, 2026 at the Vancouver Island Regional Library (Courtenay)
The Courtenay Branch of the Vancouver Island Public Library will host a resource table displaying books about death, dying, and grief in support of Pas-à-pas; not intent on arriving. The display will include materials addressing the diverse aspects of death and grief, including reflections from local authors and community-based resources. CVAG is grateful to the lead librarian Zane Weller and the library team for their collaboration.
Walking Wellness | Self-Guided Walks on Trails within the Comox Valley
Resources for individual walks are available thanks to the Comox Valley Hospice Society. Printed guidebooks are available by donation at CVAG, and PDF versions can be viewed below:
- Cycles Of Life
- Strolls For Wellness: Aliveness Walk
- Strolls For Wellness: Journey Walk
- Puntledge River Transition Walk
EXHIBITIONS + PIANO PERFORMANCES
The exhibition Pas-à-pas; not intent on arriving by SD Holman with Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa is on view at CVAG from April 4 – May 30, 2026.
During the run of this program, gallery visitors are invited to engage with the community art activations Before I Die and Memory Stones.
SD Holman and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa will be at CVAG for the following events:
Opening Celebration + Performance | Saturday, April 4 | 1:00pm | Words Shared – SD Holman + Paul Wong | Piano Performance – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
Mid-Program Performance | Saturday, May 2 | 2:00pm | Piano Performance – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
Closing Performance | Saturday, May 30 | 2:00pm | Piano Performance – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
CVAG is grateful for the special sponsorship that supports making this program possible: The McGrane-Pearson Endowment Fund, held at Vancouver Foundation.
The Comox Valley Art Gallery is committed to creating safer spaces where everyone can participate.
All ages are welcome.
CVAG spaces are accessible. Efforts are made to make presented programming contents available to all by using approachable audio and visual technologies to aid in experience and way-finding. Staff are available to answer any questions and to provide orientation to the presentation and gallery spaces.
Programs are barrier-free (no cost). DONATIONS are appreciated and contribute to ongoing community interactive programming.
PUBLIC HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS: we ask that visitors choose not to visit if they are experiencing symptoms of colds and flus.
Hand sanitation dispensers are available at CVAG. Wearing a mask is at the discretion of the visitor.